


Balancing Act

by farrah_yondale



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, F/M, zelgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farrah_yondale/pseuds/farrah_yondale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problems Zelda and Ganon face raising a half-Gerudo child when Hylians still only see their new princess as a thief</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scorch

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't meant to be in chronological order, nor is it really going in any direction. It's more like a collection of my thoughts regarding how I think this pairing would work.

They named her Noura, which meant 'light' in the Gerudo tongue. 

It was therefore ironic that when plucking a light arrow from its perch, the holy weapon seared her flesh, clattering on the marble before her feet. It was not like the heat of a stove, which burned only the skin, but much deeper, as though her soul had been scorched. If she hadn't been trained by her father to be hardy, she might have cried out from the pain. 

“Noura!” It was the panicked voice of her mother, long dress gathered in her hand so that she might run easily. “There you are! I told you not to--” The reprimanding stopped there as the queen suddenly understood her daughter's stricken face and the arrow at her feet. 

She crouched, folding the dress behind her knees as she did, her movements always so fluid and graceful. Not like the little girl, who was bulky and dark and stomped everywhere with feet made for much more dangerous terrain than grass. 

“The arrow...” Noura started. Her voice always wavered, always so unsure. It was the curse of being bred of two people who were meant to be opposing forces. “It burned me...” Zelda laid her hands over her daughter's shoulders. “Am I evil?”

The soft silk of her glove tickled Noura's cheek, the queen's eyes stern. “No.” She brushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. “These arrows were meant to kill your father and no more. It does not mean he is evil, any more than you are. Your bloodline does not determine whether you are inherently evil...or inherently good for that matter. That's one thing your father taught me.” She smiled warmly and was relieved it brought a smile to her daughter's face as well. 

The queen stood, hand reaching out for the child. “Come.”

The light arrow laid there, untouched. 

*

“She found these today, you know.” The arrow snapped between delicate fingers with surprising force for someone who resembled a wraith more and more as the days went by. She tossed the thumb's length of splinters into the fireplace, clapping any dust that might have remained out of her hands. 

“What did you say to her?” Ganon's voice hinted at concern, but it was otherwise unapparent in the way he hunched over. He weaved his fingers through red hair, tying it into a loose braid that reached the slit of his long tunic. 

“That she wasn't evil.” Zelda crouched before the fire, palms facing the only source of light in the room. 

“I'm sure that cheered her up.” Zelda pursed her lips at him, sarcasm unappreciated. He responded with an amused look, golden eyes sparkling in the firelight. 

“You're worried about her?” he asked. He reached for the pashmina shawl hanging on the bed frame and draped it over his shoulders. 

The queen tucked her knees under her chin, ignoring the ache of the cold, hard floor on her pelvis. She did not turn her head as he approached her and crouched beside her, embracing her with the shawl. 

“I don't care what the others say about her, but if it's affecting her....” Zelda laid her head over her husband's knee, grateful for the warmth he provided. Ganon brushed back the locks of hair falling over her face. 

Ganon stared at the fireplace, thinking. “Perhaps we should assign her some responsibility. Something that involves interacting with her people.”

“And what if they only display their disgust for her? It'll only sadden her more.”

“Do you think the people of Hyrule reacted warmly to me when I became king?” he asked. “She needs to break that barrier down. She needs to stop avoiding her own people. And if she works them, she'll be able to convince them that she is just as innocent as you were as a princess.”

Zelda sat in silence for a moment and then 'mmm'ed, tracing a finger over the loose cotton pants he always wore to bed.

“What do you think?” 

The queen forced herself up, using her husband's knee for support and tightened the shawl around them, laying her head on his shoulder. 

“You might be right.”

*

It was probably because she had been raised by Impa of all people, but Noura had a tendency to retreat into the trees when she was sulking. To the castle cook's relief, however, she did not accompany her mood with a series of wails that would send all of Hyrule to their beds with massive headaches (unlike her nursemaid, who used to produce migraines in all the laundrywomen with the noises she made). Much like her father, her sorrow and anger simmered inside of her in silence. He had warned her against this behavior, but that was simply how she was. She always remained quiet.

“Noura!” The young princess could see fat hands cupped over the girl's mouth, her skin light as all Hylians, her blonde hair bunched up into two pigtails. The way she looked, and the way she acted, she might have made a better princess for Hyrule. 

“Noura, I see you!” Noura's red hair had never really blended in well with the Castle garden's shrubbery to her dismay. “I'm coming up.”

Aryll hung from one of the branches below and looked up at her friend. “What's wrong? Did someone say something mean to you again?”

Noura shook her head. 

Aryll hung there for a moment, kicking her feet. “Well...Daddy said he'd teach us how to ride a horse today if you want.” The princess didn't answer. “Do you want to come?”

“Not really.”

“Noura!” The farm-girl whined. She grabbed hold of the princess's arm and shook it. “Come on! Hey, what's this?” The Gerudo drew back as Aryll caught sight of the pearly white lines drawn over her fingers.

Noura hesitated. “It's...the light arrows burned me.”

“Whhhaaaat?” Aryll exclaimed. “But you aren't evil! The light arrows must be broken!” In all the stories Aryll's father had recounted, none of them ever mentioned the possibility that light arrows could confuse their target, but the farm-girl had an inclination to twist old legends according to her own imagination. 

“Okay, come on! Let's go! We've been begging him since forever and now that he's finally letting us, you're just gonna sit here?”

Noura was silent.

“Noura, come! Even if you are evil, you're still my friend and I won't have any fun without you! Do you want to spoil my fun?”

The young princess couldn't help but smile at this. “Okay, fine,” she said. “But if we get a choice, I get to ride Epona!”

*

Noura felt the scorch of Impa's brushing against her thick, coarse hair. Impa had long forgone using a comb in it when the last one had snapped right in half. Noura had sat up shocked, grasping between tangled red knots to the find the pieces of wooden teeth, stopping only when Impa had leaned back laughing.

The memory of it was usually enough to send the girl into a fit of giggles, but today she stared into the mirror at her own sour face. 

“What's the matter, child?” When Noura remained silent, Impa glanced down at the girl's palms, recognizing the pattern of ivory white scars. 

“Noura, you are not evil.”

“But the light arrow burned me!” She stuck out white-tipped fingers in front of the Sheikah's face. 

“Yes, you're right,” Impa answered without hesitation, folding the child's small fingers into a fist. “Do you know what light arrows are meant to destroy?”

“Darkness.”

“Yes, darkness. Not evil. Evil is not the same as darkness, child. In this world, darkness and light must be balanced. When there is too much darkness, the light arrows are brought out to restore this balance. And how could darkness be evil, when the Sheikah are shadows themselves? Would the Goddesses ever allow an evil tribe to serve and protect the royal family?”

Noura had no counter to that. 

“Do the arrows burn the Sheikah too?”

Impa presented her palm. “Yes, it has burned me as well.” Two smooth white lines starting from her forefinger and her thumb intersected at the heel of her hand. Noura had noticed this scar since she could remember, but did not realize until now that it mirrored the one she now had over her fingers. 

She wondered to herself for a moment what could have led her nursemaid to touching the light arrows.


	2. Drabbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this isn't really an update. I really want to write more about Zelda and Ganon's relationship, but my muse insists that I write more about their sad child, so I am currently engaged in a heated battle with myself. So to occupy you, here are a few scenes that I could not weave into the narrative. I might have a few more chapters titled "Drabbles" should I come up with them.

If anyone in Hyrule had wondered what exactly Zelda and Ganon could possibly ever have in common, they would only need to step into the Castle library to find out. 

Zelda had always been a voracious reader. The Triforce in her seemed to carry her along the pages, urging her mind that she always needed more and more information, that her spells could always be mastered further. She was the type of person that would hunch over heavy books till her back ached and her eyes burned in longing for sleep. It was almost a ritual for her husband to find her splayed over the pages of _Mathematics and Astronomy_ ( _Why_ was she reading this?) or something similarly horrendous and for him to leave a shawl or a jacket over her shoulders. 

Ganon, on the other hand, rarely sat and read. Perhaps it was the Triforce in him, but he always seemed to be searching for something, hands ardently running along the shelves, knowing not what it needed, but that everything he read did not have it. He would read a few lines to a few pages and quickly become bored with almost everything he came across. When he found a book that caught his attention, however, he would sit cross-legged where he stood and finish it within the day, reading it three or four or five times. And then his wife would have to endure his endless excitement over the subject for the week (For goodness's sake, she did not care about the five different genders of the Zora). 

And despite their strikingly different reading habits, the point was that they both enjoyed reading. Zelda thought this was enough, because frankly, she had rarely met a royal who shared this hobby, rarely met anyone whose wisdom could rival hers. Ganon thought the same. None of his sisters could read Hylian, and Gerudos tended to keep an oral tradition of storytelling in their own language. 

And of course, it was only natural that their daughter would share their hobby. 

*

Ganon was an incredibly affectionate man, to the surprise of everyone in court (save for Zelda, because, for goodness's sake, just because he was born in a harsh desert did not mean he was entirely emotionless. And then Impa had to hold Zelda back from turning whoever had said this into a rat). He greeted his daughter every morning by sandwiching her face between his hands and kissing her on every corner he could find. “Father, stop! Let go!” she would whine, and Ganon would be forced to leave her scrambling out of the room. Despite her indignation, however, the King of Hyrule knew for a fact that she looked forward to this ritual. 

One morning he had found the little one at his feet, staring up at him expectantly.

“Good morning,” he had said, and refrained from his usual kisses, assuming that she despised them. She only replied by widening her eyes at him. Ganon assumed that one of Impa's stories about seeing the Truth had gone to her head and that she must have been trying to read his mind. He moved to leave until he felt her tugging at the end of his robes.

“Aren't you going to kiss me?” she asked. 

*

A lady let out a high-pitched screech as Ganon sneezed. The king, being as polite as he was, had done so on the inside of his elbow (hands occupied with a loaf of bread he had snatched from the kitchens and legal documents) and suddenly froze at the unwarranted hysteria. All others occupying the room turned their heads at the woman, equally astounded at her exclamation. There was a deep, awkward silence as Ganon stared wide-eyed at the woman, and the woman stared back at him, hands clasped over her mouth. 

The silence was broken only by the king's sister, who snorted an unrefined laugh, slapping her thighs, stomping a foot, and throwing her head back. In response to this, the noblewoman ran out of the room, wailing. 

“Hylians,” the king muttered, returning to his work.


	3. Wedding Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reverse chronological order, takes place before Noura was born

“Hold still!”

In all his life, Ganon only knew one person who could manage to make a slap hurt through his armor. He shrugged a shoulder so that the metal might bite into Impa's hands in some sort of passive aggressive attempt at revenge. Instead he was merely slapped again.

“What did I just say?” the Sheikah hissed. “Do you want me to break your neck or fix it?”

“It feels more like you're breaking it,” the King snapped back. In all honesty, he probably wouldn't have trusted Impa using her magic to heal his injuries if he hadn't seen his wife so quickly relieved by it.

“You know what?” he continued. “Just stop. You're making it worse.”

“Fine.” This time the slap was to his head. Ganon held in a growl. Oblivious to his glare, Impa grabbed a heavy bag off the counter and dropped it over his shoulder. “Use this.” All his aggression towards the woman melted away with the heat over his strained muscles. He sighed, so relieved he didn't notice his pregnant wife walk into the room.

“Ganon, you're holding that thing more lovingly than you've ever held me,” Zelda teased.

“Well, this bag of hot water is warmer than you've ever been with me.” Try to battle wits with Ganon and you would most likely lose. The Gerudo were already well-known for their sarcasm, and as much as Nabooru would scoff over Ganon's endless list of deficiencies, no one could deny his tongue certainly had none.

Zelda knew that, but it still didn't hurt to try.

“Ouch.” Impa bit her lip as the queen threw her a sharp glare. She opened her mouth to retort only to be interrupted by the musical ring of Ganon's sister.

“Dear brother!” Nabooru's head popped out from behind the threshold, surveying whether it was safe to enter. “Sorry to interrupt whatever sexual tension is going on here--” (Ganon couldn't hold in his growl this time) “--but I need to borrow my darling younger brother for a moment.”

Ganon followed her out of the bedchamber, far enough so that neither the queen nor her guard could hear.

“I thought you'd want to see this.” Nabooru rummaged through the pocket of her knee-length tunic. “Hold on.” His sister was wearing that strange fashion that had erupted as of late where the right half of the shirt consisted of an intricate pattern, while the left was the solid crimson-red that most Gerudo traditionally wore. He thought it looked ridiculous, but Nabooru had stabbed her scimitar into his boot the last time he expressed this, so he felt no need to voice his opinion again.

“Here.” She extracted a crumpled piece of parchment from her pocket and handed it to him.

“Think there might have been some wisdom in the late King's ways?” A grin crossed over the woman's face as Ganon read the note. “Keep your people starved and outsiders as enemies so they don't have time to come up with this gossip?”

“But...” Ganon let out a cross between a sigh and a grunt. “They spent two years gossiping about—But she's--” The king was clearly at loss for words. “Well, when the baby is born, hopefully they'll stop.”

Nabooru waved her hand at him in the characteristic way most Gerudo did, no way. “That won't change anything, love. The baby will look Gerudo and they'll start rumors about how I'm the other parent.”

Ganon inhaled and smacked the paper back in Nabooru's hands. “I think I preferred Impa trying to strangle me than listening to this nonsense.”

*

The length for which a piece of gossip reigned over Hyrule was dependent entirely on its washerwomen. If gossiping was akin to eating a sister's flesh (like the Gerudo saying went), then the laundrywomen were the spine around which rumors layered flesh over. They weren't necessarily the seeds from where rumors grew out of it, but they were certainly responsible for watering it, and the more they liked a certain tale, the more attention they gave it. So it was only natural that because they loved the piece of gossip involving the king and queen, it remained in circulation for an abnormally long amount of time.

“It has been over two years, and the queen still hasn't produced a child!” One of such metaphorical gardeners paused over her cleaning to let out this offensive screech.

“Do you think she's infertile?” one of the other women piped up.

“Or do you think it's the king?”

“I certainly wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Goddess only knows how the Gerudo--”

All the washerwomen screeched as their friend found herself two meters in the air, legs dangling just off the ground, held in place by a tightened brown fist under her collar. The fist, to the dismay of all the women, belonged to the queen's towering guardian.

“Shut your mouth, woman,” the Sheikah woman snapped. “I tire of your endless gossip. You spin tales out of your own wild imaginations, spreading rumors, slandering _my_ people and _his_ people, without a shred of pity for the subjects of your stories. And if anyone in this castle is infertile, it is _I_.” The last letter was a low growl between clenched teeth. She let her down slowly, so that her feet might balance themselves, but even as she did, the washerwoman stumbled back and tripped over her stool. “If I catch you gossiping again, I'll rip that loose tongue straight out of your mouth.”

The women stared in silence as the queen's guard marched out the door, the quiet broken only by the hushed whisper of one of the younger women: “Is she really infertile?”

“Thank the Goddess, she's infertile.”

*

“Zelda...” The king's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper even, but the queen still jumped at the sound. He thought of apologizing for a brief moment, but his thoughts were occupied with more serious matters.

The queen set down her brush on her vanity with a clack and regarded her husband's hunched form at the threshold of her bedchamber.

“If you've come to me about that ridiculous gossip that spreading in the palace, I already--”

“Zelda,” Ganon interrupted. “We should...try to have a child.”

For a moment, the queen had been genuinely worried by how grave his voice had been. After hearing this, she immediately broke into laughter. Zelda had a tendency to laugh at things that probably shouldn't have been laughed at, but all Ganon could do was wait patiently for her giggles to subside.

“For the Three's sake!” Zelda exclaimed before the king could even open his mouth. “Stop listening to all those rumors.” Her voice returned to its more serious tone. “Children are bestowed upon us by the Goddesses. There's no need to force yourself.”

Her voice hung in the room for a while.

“You may pretend that the rumors don't bother you, but I know they do.”

Zelda flinched, visibly, but her husband didn't need to see her reaction to know what he said was true.

*

“I don't like sex.”

Zelda, had she been responsible for it, might have afforded Ganon the Triforce of Courage for uttering those four words. Then again, she had to remind herself that it was less about courage and more about culture. Hylians had lists of unwritten rules about masculinity that her husband was completely unaware of. To him, this was simply another fact, a normal variation in his preferences, as one might say they favored one color over another.

To Hylians, it was so much more.

To most Hylians, anyway. Her late father might have tried to instill some of those preconceptions in her. But her father constantly expressed his disgust for the Sheikah, which was enough for her to ignore his remarks regarding what was manly and what wasn't.

“So, how did you find out? Have you ever...?”

“I did. Once. A woman, she was...a bit older than me. But she was nice. I told her I didn't like it at all and she just laughed. It's quite common amongst the Gerudo women, actually.”

“Is it strange for a Gerudo man?”

“I don't really know,” he admitted. “But none of the women in my tribe seem to be concerned. I didn't even think there was anything strange about it until I came here.”

He stared up at the canopy hanging over the bed. He rarely ever looked at her directly. Zelda thought he might have been intimidated, that if he looked into her eyes, she might ask for something he didn't know how to give.

Strange, that he was so afraid of passion when he himself was filled with so much fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand “Rumors” would probably be a more appropriate title for this chapter, but then I couldn't bait you all with false hopes of smut or fluff Nyeh heh heh. Yes, I am evil, thank you. 
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to express Ganon's sexuality through this chapter, but I'm not sure if I like how I did it. I tried to write it at least three times in various different ways, but all of them seemed to be...eh. 
> 
> Not sure if I'll update this again, or when I'll update it, rather. I have a plethora of other things I'd rather write and school is taking up a lot of my time as well. Sorry to make you all wait for such a lackluster chapter.


End file.
